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2011-04-01

Apple's Stupid Trademark Cases: Now Including Emacs

Apple has become progressively more aggressive about its products' trademarks lately. The more talked-about example has been its aggression regarding the term "App Store" The problem is that Apple itself would refer to "app store" generically and even talked about other companies' possible "app stores", yet now, when Microsoft wants to make an "app store" for the Windows Phone operating system, Apple is claiming that "App" is short for "Apple". This is truly disingenuous because practically every app developer on the face of this planet and many users out there too know that "app" has always stood for "application", not "Apple". Well, this sort of behavior has gone on even further. Many thanks to the good folks at Tuxmachines and LXer for providing the links; you can go to those sites to follow the original links. Follow the jump to read more.

Emacs, which was first developed in the mid-1970s, has been the latest target of Apple's wrath. The irony is that it was only around the same time that Apple was founded, and Apple OSs have always been based on BSD, which has been linked with GNU (the first platform for Emacs); furthermore, it didn't use the "Macintosh" name until the release of the first Macintosh computer in 1984, and it didn't use the "eMac" name until 2000 with the release of the education-focused eMac computer line (hence the letter 'e' in front of "Mac"). I have a very bad feeling this is going to devolve into a winning lawsuit for Apple, because I haven't read anywhere that Emacs is a registered trademark. But seriously, why is Apple threatening the Free Software Foundation over a name that existed before Apple itself did? This just seems (pardon the pun) patently ridiculous. I really hope this doesn't go forward, but again, with Apple's recent actions, it's hard to say.

If you didn't get it the first time, April Fools! Don't worry, other articles that may be posted today will not be pranks. I promise. Really.